President Earless Address. ■ 35 



staple fruits often sell at ruinous prices in our leading markets, not only on 

 particular days, but for long periods. The shippers of pe.irs from California,, 

 of peaches from Delaware, of apples from Michigan, of strawberries from 

 Illinois, and of oranges from Florida, can all testify to this. Yet I do not 

 think that too many of either of these fruits of good quality have ever been- 

 grown in any of these states, nor enough for the markets that were within 

 practical reach of them, or the mouths that were hungry for them. The 

 fault is with our transportation, and our lack of any far-reaching and elabo- 

 rate system of distribution. I think I have known good oranges to sell at 

 not much over one cent apiece at wholesale in Chicago, the market being 

 overloaded, when there were a thousand towns within a day's ride of that 

 city in which you could not buy an orange for less than five cents— and not 

 many at that — and millions of people within the same radius who did not 

 taste an orange in the whole winter. Yet the fruit distribution from Chi- 

 cago is more closely worked than from any other American city. 



DISTANT MARKETS. 



There have been many winters in which the price of winter apples has 

 paid the producer very lean profits, and paid the large dealers more losses 

 than gains, while at that same time an apple was a rarity, if not an absolute 

 stranger, in half the farmers' homes and laborers' cottages in America. The 

 delicious apricots of your Pacific coast are often left to decay in the luxuri- 

 ant orchards that bear them for want of a market, while not one-tenth of the 

 people of the United States ever tasted an apricot in their lives. Yet, by 

 using the best modern means of transportation, your most delicate varieties, 

 picked ripe from the trees and full of excellence— and not, as they are now for 

 long shipment, too green to be of high quality— can be laid down in all of our 

 great eastern markets in very perfect condition. 



The same difficulty exists with most of our fruits. So many of our 

 available markets are not reached ; and the fruit-grower suffers from an ap- 

 parent over-production when half the people go hungfy for fruits which they 

 need and can not obtain. This condition of trade is not found in the case of 

 staple goods of other kinds, and manufactured articles ; for all these goods 

 are handled according to a more thorough business system. The more 

 perishable nature of our fruits must of necessity modify and limit the same 

 system of thorough commercial canvassing by which more durable products 

 are placed constantly in every town and hamlet in the country; but I feel 

 sure that regular fruit markets can be built up in thousands of towns that 

 now get no supplies, except in the most irregular way, by an energetic system 

 of canvassing. This subject demands the serious attention of our growers 

 and dealers. 



TRICKS OF TRADE. 



This leads me to notice one grave reason why the building up of a reg- 

 ular fruit trade is more difficult than it should be. This reason is the irreg- 



